Colombian National Police

The Colombian National Police is the national police force of Colombia, founded on 5 November 1891. The national police is controlled by the Ministry of Defense, and it is the only civilian police force in the country. With the start of the Colombian conflict in the 1960s, the CNP started facing guerrilla threats, and the police was involved with armed operations against both the communist guerrillas and drug cartels. The CNP was plagued with corruption scandals, being accused of collaborating with right-wing paramilitaries, accepting bribes from drug cartels (especially the Medellin Cartel and Cali Cartel), and cleansing leftist parties. During the 1990s, the devout Christian CNP general Rosso Jose Serrano reformed the CNP, cracking down on corruption and restoring public trust in the police. In 2008, the CNP had 143,557 employees.